Chapter 19: Les Miserables
The loudspeaker-mounted armored car kept shuttling through the city of Warsaw, and the loudspeaker broadcast quickly changed from fast German to Polish, and then slowly and seriously repeated the news that the last resistance troops in Warsaw would be shot on Piusotsky Square, and the time was today. The repeated broadcasts brought tears to the eyes of the Poles hiding at home, and the men clenched their fists, but the streets were full of German soldiers who were eyeing each other, and they could only die when they went out unarmed.
As the time for the execution approached, more and more Poles came out of each other's arms, and from the ruins, cellars, and even sewers, most of them were disheveled, withered, dusty in the cold wind, and everyone shivered. It's just that their expressions are calm, calm to the point of numbness, so numb that one can feel the deep sadness in them. How many of these people have lost children, relatives, friends, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, lovers, and how many will lose, children, relatives and friends, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, lovers?
The Poles, who appeared in twos and threes, gradually merged into a stream of people, who poured from every street and every building, quietly surrounded Piusotsky Square by the sound of the radio. In the middle of the square, the Germans were in full array, their tanks were still smoking, their gun barrels had not yet subsided, and the expressions of each soldier were so cold and sharp, and some people looked at the expressions of the Poles, as if they were a little eager to try, as if they hoped that one or two hot-blooded and short-eyed ones would bring something else to the square.
In the center of the square, nearly 200 handcuffed Poles stood in a phalanx, the last Polish resistance in Warsaw captured by the Germans. Tian Jing, who was tightly pulled by Karina, squinted her eyes, and she suddenly found that among the men in the first row, the priest she had met was also among them, but she didn't expect that now, in this scene, she saw him again.
Tomorrow is the day when Zhao Zhi and them withdraw to Germany, Tian Jing and Karina were arranged to go back with Zhao Zhi and them all the way, so Tian Jing, who stayed in the hotel and had nothing to do, followed Karina to watch the excitement. She is not Polish, so naturally she can't understand Karina's mood at this time, fortunately, Karina, who is of Austrian descent, only has an adoptive mother of Polish origin, otherwise the Gestapo would have sent the radical Karina to stand with the priest at the first time.
A German officer walked up to a tank and said in a loud voice, to the effect that there was no good end to going against Germany, and this is proof! Then, after a command, the Polish resistance, including the priest, was divided into several platoons, and then pulled over to face the German soldiers with guns. There was barely a buffer time, and the gunshots of the execution converged, the echoes were still echoing, and there were already many more corpses on the ground.
"Whew!" Karina, who was beside Tian Jing, covered her mouth violently, like many women next to her, her eyes were red, and she kept whimpering, the speed of the German execution was very fast, just a few minutes, those resistance soldiers became corpses, and the Poles surrounding the square were also driven away by the German army, and the corpses of these resistance soldiers were lying on the square, according to the meaning of the German army, the corpses of these resistance soldiers still need to be in the square for three days. "Don't look at it, hurry back to the hotel and don't run around, the Germans are about to search for Jews all over the city" A strong arm grabbed Tian Jing's arm, it was Ye Kong who was wearing an SS uniform.
Sure enough, as soon as Ye Kong sent Tian Jing and Karina back to the hotel, the fierce German soldiers kicked open the doors of the Poles one by one, and they wanted to gather the Jews in Warsaw City in one block. Screams, screams, and gunshots were everywhere, and Warsaw, which had just been quiet for a night, was once again shrouded in terror, and Tian Jing and Karina huddled on a bed for a long time and did not dare to close their eyes. Tian Jing obviously has a different face from the Germans, and Karina also has a Polish adoptive mother, and the two of them really don't know if the documents given to them by Zhao Zhi are useful.
The German search for the Jews continued throughout the afternoon and night, and by the time Tian Jing and Karina were awakened by Rowling the next morning, the German search for the Jews continued. After Tian Jing and Karina went downstairs, they found that the number of guests living in the hotel was suddenly more than half, and when asked about the reason, they found out that the missing guests were all Jews of Polish origin, and they were arrested by German soldiers last night and taken to the ghetto area, and now the people who can move freely in Warsaw are non-Jewish Poles except for German soldiers.
"Let's eat first, we'll go do something after dinner, and then we'll go back to Berlin" Rowling obviously didn't sleep well last night, the undersides of her eyes were a little blue, and she yawned from time to time when she talked to Tian Jing. In order to approve the number of Jews in Warsaw, Rowling took a group of improvised Poles to spend most of the night, until dawn in the morning, when she could check the number of Jews, and she would accompany Zhao Zhi to the ghetto to select skilled workers and engineers.
No matter how much the outside world changed, no matter how much the German soldiers were eyeing the streets, more and more people began to take to the streets, they still had to work and live, and some shops were opened, and small shopkeepers could be seen moving baskets of goods into the shops, although they did not have a very obvious sense of excitement. Although the reopening was also what they wanted, but only if it was not under the imposition of German policy, the German military top brass needed to see a Warsaw that was at least less depressed.
It was not only the Poles who needed to live, but also many who had lost their homes, who were improvised to clean up the rubble, repair buildings, and trade their actions for the food and safety needed by the Germans every day. Many stiff corpses were dug out of the rubble, walking in the streets were surrounded by a sense of silence and faint cries, many Polish houses were destroyed, many people could not even get food, they lived together, huddled in sheltered from the wind, bridges, bomb shelters, once again became shelters.
The air was cloudy, the water was uncleaned, the sewage was running everywhere, and the smell of body and food was everywhere, and this was the current situation in Warsaw, and the surviving Poles endured it, cursing, cursing the Germans, and cursing the Jews. Tian Jing and Karina, who were sitting in the car with Rowling, were naturally the targets of their scolding, but more people's eyes were swollen and showed envy, envy that Tian Jing and Karina were with Rowling in SS uniforms, instead of being ragged like them.
Many wealthy Polish businessmen fled before the war, including the Jewish merchants, who smelled danger from the German build-up like sharks that smelled blood, so that half of the Jews of Polish origin fled before the German invasion of Poland. The Germans used this propaganda to provoke them, and soon the anti-Semitic sentiments in Poland became no less than in Germany, and now they also felt that they had been cheated by Jewish businessmen, taking away a large amount of Polish property, and even the Polish people were now living in such embarrassment.
The Poles could not defeat Germany and did not dare to scold Germany, and their grief and indignation urgently needed an outlet, and the Jewish people became the first object of hatred. Obviously, this German propaganda war has achieved very good results, and many Jewish resistance troops were betrayed to the German army by the Poles, and they did not know that the real mastermind behind this German propaganda war would be a Chinese, a Chinese wearing a German SS uniform, he was Zhao Zhi.
The German SS arrested Jews all over the streets, and they were sent in droves to the ghetto, a walled apartment in which the Poles for unknown reasons thought the Jews would live well. The streets were full of SS and Army soldiers in black uniforms, who looked down on each other, but were united in carrying out the Führer's orders.
Zhao Zhi's car was affixed with a special pass, and each of them carried a pass issued by Führer Hitler himself and a certificate stamped with the seal of the Gestapo, and the procedures for entering and leaving the ghetto were very troublesome, even Zhao Zhi and they were subjected to several inspections and interrogations, especially Karina, who was evasive, was carefully treated by the German guards.
"Hey! What are you doing?! I'm Swiss! I'm a neutral Swiss! When Hans took back the documents from the German officer, a tall woman with brown hair was being dragged by a German soldier by the hair and stumbling towards the ghetto, the coat on her body had already been dragged on the ground full of muddy water, and one of the woman's ** was exposed from the torn neckline, and Rowling's heart tingled when she looked at her exposed chest with white swaying, and the tears on the woman's face and the long snot that dragged on her face made Rowling simply turn her head and dare not look at it again.
Rowling had always thought that the war was far away from women, but this scene in front of her instantly turned her thoughts upside down, the woman who was dragged in the muddy water kept crying, but the German soldier who grabbed her hair had no intention of stopping, until he dragged the woman all the way into the ghetto. None of the surrounding German soldiers, including the officers, had any intention of stopping them, and even threw cigarettes at the German soldier just now.
"Don't look at it, let's leave when we're done" Zhao Zhi took Rowling, who had a somewhat dull expression, into the car, he knew that Rowling was frightened by the scene just now, Rowling had seen dead people, but it was a battlefield where you lived and died. The scene in front of me was a woman who had been abused, and Rowling, who had received a good education since childhood, had seen this, and she was frightened.